I applied online. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at Google
Interview
Fully online, it was the messiest and the longest interview process ever. It took over 10 weeks for the final decision and 7 meetings. The first two meeting were with a recruiter who conducted a quick screening and on the next meeting explained the recruitment process and interviews order.
First interview (3rd meeting) was with a hiring manager who was asking mainly behavioral questions. That went well.
The second interview (4th meeting) was a technical one, during the first half I was being asked about linux, that went well too and during the second half the engineering guy said: "I can see you have chosen Java for your programming skills evaluation." Nothing in my resume says anything about Java, I provided my language preferences but the recruiter wasnt prepared for it so he started making up random questions , he became nervous and so did I.
The third interview (5th meeting) was db related. It was actually interesting sparring because I was providing answers in a technical context that my recruiter wasn't very familiar. A couple questions were related about tech I didn't know (and not included in cv).
The 4th interview (6th meeting) supposed to be about googliness but to my surprise it was another technical interview, mix of db, os questions. It went well.
I had to wait couple weeks to get a feedback response and the feedback was... 'a hiring committee is not ready to provide a feedback' :). I was once again asked to participate in another interview.
The 5th interview and the last one (7th meeting) was actually lost and found googliness with a support lead. It was again kinda behavioral/scenario/situational, the interviewer was friendly, I think it was a really good meeting.
Couple weeks of silence again. I emailed my recruiter twice, asking for a decision. I got the reply back that they are still very interested in my profile and they are setting up a meeting a site lead to introduce me. Then two weeks later a reject mail came.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
networking on linux
db blocks
network mask
support questions
The Process is smooth and you are informed of the next steps in a timely fashion. Recruiter was easy to work with and always communicated well in advance.
However, Google probably only wants Linux Admins, not the people who have other varied skills. They should add job description for TSE as "Linux Administration"
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Interview is difficult because questions were all related to Linux Administration. Nothing related to my expertise and my experience did not matter at all.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at Google (Atlanta, GA) in Mar 2021
Interview
This is a long process that they will tell you up-front can take at least 12 weeks, many people experience more. It starts with the standard HR/recruiter screens, then goes to a basic technical competency screen. If you pass this you will move on to the intensive technical screen which occurs in three parts over the course of one day. At this point they will decide based on interview feedback if you will proceed, and if you do, you will be matched to a team in the location for which you applied and then go through the compensation review to determine where your compensation package will fall. I made it to roughly the last step of this process before accepting a software engineering job elsewhere but I would absolutely recommend Google's recruitment experience to anyone lucky enough to get this far.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They will ask you questions relating to your qualifications for the specific job (Role-related Knowledge), culture fit (Googlyness), and problem-solving and critical thinking (General Cognitive Ability). Be prepared for this type of questioning and to perform under pressure.